


Stories From the High Wilderness

by FloridianOranges



Category: Sunless Skies
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:49:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21665461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloridianOranges/pseuds/FloridianOranges
Summary: Stories from my captains, Kugelblitz and others from the High Wilderness about their travels in the skies.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 5





	1. Longing for the Neath

It’s chilly, Kugelblitz thinks, far to much out the rest of the High Wilderness. They look out over the Stairwell to the Sea.

They had never thought they would be a Captain of anything much less a celestial locomotive, and yet here they were Captain of the Orphean, their late best friends train. Whitlock was a captain in the zee before the Exodus from the Neath.

They’ve been thinking about the Neath quite a bit andthe rush to leave the caverns and stygian darkness clambering aboard a ship to Skies, all in order to learn to see more. They’ve changed a lot in the years since, older and quieter, though their glass cough certainly doesn’t help. They watch silently as the water laps at the molding flotilla. It all had to end at some point they think quietly, Fallen London after all everyone remembered there were cities before there might have been more later.

They miss the clay men and bats and zailors. They were born and raised down in the Neath they realize, finally putting it into thoughts, the High Wilderness is new, but it isn’t quite home. The Neath was where they learned it all first saw that sigils that would drive their academic career and push them out until High Wilderness, seeing equal wonder and terror.

At the edge of the sky Kugelblitz wonders if it was worth it. A small tear rolls down their cheek, they miss the Unterzee, they miss home.


	2. Heart Break In New London

Kugelblitz couldn’t believe how much London had changed in the few years they have been gone, first to teach at a New Winchester University and then as a locomotive First Mate with their old friend. They still couldn’t quite remember how they actually got on board, the cider at Nowhere Inn made sure if that.

They were rocked out of their thoughts when hearing someone yell, “K.B.! Over here!”

They’re head swiveled around as they turned to see how had called them out. K.B. was an old nickname from their days at Somerset as a Professor and Student. Barely anyone outside the Language Department knew it. Idiots could speak the language of the stars but most had issues with German.

“K.B.! By the Pub!” They turned to look by the pub’s entrance and saw an old man who looked entirely unfamiliar.

Kugelblitz walked over to the haunched figure. “Hello my good, praytell how do you know that name?”

The person looked up at them and smiled toothily with now all to familiar amber eyes. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember your old friend, Pauline?”

Kugelblitz blinked, “Pauline? It can’t be I saw you two years ago!"and indeed the night before Kugelblitz had left for New Winchester the yeti off they were together in back rooms translating Sappho and Dante together. ‘You were far more than a friend. Were.’

"Come, let’s head in and talk, it’s been ages, guess you’re not the oldest bachelorette in the department anymore.” Pauline joked quietly.

Kugelblitz followed her into the pub where they both sat in the dark fatherest corner from anyone else, bitter feelings welling up inside at that previous comment. “What happened to you Pauline, you’ve aged years,” they began to question only interrupted by terribled coughs each throwing up emerald shards. While their thoughts were more along the lines of, 'You never wrote nor sent a message and simply left that night.’

Pauline quickly took note. “You have too, none of us really leave her unchanged.”

Kugelblitz had to bite their tongue from saying what there truly wanted, 'Why did you leave me after all of that with barely a letter or note.’ Instead replaced by, “I can see that mishap with the Hours you were studying?”

“That and more got trapped on one of the work worlds during a tour, and well you know what to time there.” She said with a simple shrug, “But I heard you’re a Captain now just like old Whitlock eh?”

Kugelblitz simply sighed, “You haven’t really heard have you? Bad trip to the Blue Kingdom. She didn’t make it.”

The remaining life in Pauline’s eyes faded. “Oh. I had no idea. I’m, I’m so sorry Kug,” she whispered.

Kugelblitz stood up at that. No. After everything she did to them, they couldn’t. Wouldn’t let her call them that. Not again.

“How. How fucking dare you, after everything we went through to just leave! And then bloody do this again. No. I won’t. You’re right, both of us really have changed, I won’t go back into our old patterns not again, this time I have people who actually depend on me. Good day Pauline, I hope you find someone who truly deserves you.”

Kugelblitz paid their tab and left the pub. They had a ship Captain they could no longer pine after her, and play cat and mouse.


	3. Sign On

Kugelblitz was young then. They weren't covered in as many scars nor did they have as many nightmares. One thing though, that has remained the same ever since they signed aboard the Orphean: eyes full of wonder.

"So you were a Professor then? New Winchester University and at Summerset! Quit the resume." Whitlock said with the same airy voice that she'd keep until she firey end. "Didn't realize NW had a Correspondence department though." The two of them were in a dingy tea room near the outskirts of New Winchester. Hardly fitting for the respectable researcher but the captain was more than comfortable.

"Ah, well no, I was the department you see, small school, did earthly and celestial languages, helped save hours and sovereigns." They replied as they squeezed the hat they were holding in hand.

"And time is money, especially these days. Why you want to join? Some field research? Scandal? Got caught doing Red Honey?" Whitlock inquired the tea that sat between then rapidly cooling. "If you're going to have you habits that's fine. But it can't affect your performance on the engine or the safety of the crew."

The blood drained from Kugel's face as their hands began to shake. "No, no, nothing like that, no scandal just, I need to get away. You have ghosts? I thought I left them back in London town but they followed me here." As they spoke their accent got more noticeable.

Whitlock laughed, "Ah, Freund, ich verstehe, das Ministerium hat überall Augen."

Kugel grinned from ear to ear. "You're the first person I've met in years that knows how to say that even remotely well. But not quite them, even though if it were, I'd advise you not to use such language in public. I've often thought Correspondence is one of the least dangerous tongues to know."

Whitlock took a sip from her tepid tea as her companion flinched a little in disgust at that. "You might be right, you might be. I'm looking to put together a crew for a dangerous mission. Going to Lustrum and then going to raid the muarder's nest. Someone back in Prosper wants something they stole. You in Doc?"

Kugel thought about it. "Professor not Doc if you must, don't want of your crew to think that I can help if they break their leg or what not."

She snorted. "Whatever you see Prof, just remember they are you crew now the minute you sign the papers in front of you."

For the first time in a long while, Kugelblitz signed the papers with no hesitation. It was the last time in a long while too.


	4. Letters From A Friend

It was rare that Kugelblitz or any other of the crew members about the Schwarzschild got mail when at port, save the one of the engineers who had managed to stay on board since Whitlock was captain. The engineer frequently got letters from her wife about her children. Kugelblitz was often of the mind that the more mail and news Chief Engineer Lee got of home the better the ship in general was, Lee was tough as steel and often the heart of the ship.

“I do need to check up on her,” Kugel mused as they walked out to the post office in New Winchester where all of their and their crew’s parcels and letters were slated to go while the Engine was thundering through the skies.

The post office itself was a rickety old building dating back to the founding of New Wincester before the blockade and had been some kind of soldiers barracks during the siege. With all of this as Kugel entered the post office lobby and heard someone call out, “Professor Kugelblitz! Urgent letter for you!”

Before a rather young looking mail aid ran over to them and shoved a brown paper parcel into their hands before disappearing and shouting the name of some other captain. Kugelblitz scanned the package before seeing the name on top scrawled there in large flowery writing, “From Jordan Hullavon.” This was honestly not someone they had ever thought they would receive a letter from. They were friends in undergrad in college sure, but after completing a degree in literature, Hullavon had disappeared into the ether: Jordan had been the child of a well to do London family whose family had died in a tragic accident and thought herself a aspiring poet. 

Carefully tucking the letter under their arm Kugelblitz walked back to the engine, only a short way away, threw the rest of the mail at the first mate and locked themselves in their cabin. There they sat in a austre wooden chair in front of a cluttered desk, letter in hand simply staring at the rest of the dress, “For deliver to Kugelblitz, PhD upon my untimely demise.”

Kugelblitz knew death was always a possibility in the high wilderness. They faced it with their crew every time they left port, and hell even some times while at port the specter of death could be found. But with Jordan it was different. She was always so full of life and such a wonder to be around. Kugelblitz could never imagine her in a coffin or floating somewhere between ports or… any number of worse fates in the High Wilderness. There were far too many to count and they didn’t want to go down a hole of speculating what had happened to old Jovial Jordan. She had been the life of the party and now just gone.

With a deep breath, Kugelblitz took a knife and sliced open the envelope and began to read.

_Dear Kugelblitz,  
_

__

_  
_

_My dear friend, it has been quite awhile since we spoke and my! What has happened these long years? I finally did it. My long aim, my dream to sail the stars and find the soul of the Wilderness! I was so close to finishing my epic poem, it was to be a beautiful song about the sky and all the wonders contained therein. I shall not live to see it published. I was a fool, dear Kugel. When I set sail from Londontown, I used some of my parents vast fortune to purchase a engine, and what mighty engine she was, the Bohemian Pursuit, Agravain-Class liner, but Kugel one thing I am sure you remember about me, I am a sucker for comfort. And what a fool I was, having much of the ships protections stripped and replaced with heated pipes, carpeted floors, comfortable quarts, the Pursuit was the very model of a comfort cruiser. Yet there is one key difference between a comfort cruiser and my ship, such cruisers are normally accompanied by at least two or three Royal Dreadnaughts. I traveled with but myself. Across London I traveled most safely,but star madness soon came upon myself. I had foolishly thought to remove the stained glass and in its place install clear glass in my cabin. I wished to truly see what the skies looked like without the filters in the way, and I regret every moment of it. I can see you know scolding me and telling me not to be such a fool, when we studied you oft told me of how the light unfiltered can be a form of the Celestial Tongue and truth be told, I thought you were exaggerating. You did not. After traveling through London and writing each of my deranged observations down we soon traveled to the Reach._

_I will not bore you with what happened but suffice to say a crew bound only by my vast fortune coupled with my addeled state, and it did not go well. I lost half of it in a fortnight, after which they soundly left me at Magdalenes, some small mercy of the First Mate I think but, it is hard to remember much after having left the Clockwork Sun's golden light dripping into me slowly like honey spreading into fresh tea. Sorry. That. That is enough of that, occasionally I still get bouts of the Light Sickness. But, as I was saying, for my long time in that prison of rest, I managed to write. More than I ever had, for I simply had the time to do so. That is where I scrawled out most of my song._

_When I left Magdalenes, I charted a small but well armed and protected ship to take me to New Winchester, I heard you were a Professor the now, but alas once I had arrived you had left just days later on a travel with some Captain worst name I cannot recall. I tried to go on a venture once more, arming and protecting my ship well this time though it would never be another Bohemian Pursuit. I traveled like this for some years, with a fully good crew trading and making a meager living all the while writing and never revealing who I was. That was the issue with my old crew, they had known me as the child of wealthy nobility, here I was just an eccentric poet-Captain. That was a title I liked. But like all good things it had to end and after venturing only briefly into the Land of the Dark Star, we were quickly overtaken. The Anxious Austrian, named after you off course, made it to the Khanate in the tatters, and after getting some basic repairs we went back home to the Reach, but on our journey, I sustained a grave injury. A deep wound to my side. So, I did what I always do, and wrote. I finished as much of my Song as I could telling every bit of my story and everything I had seen in equal measure and meter. And now I set out to write this letter, because I will not make it back to New Winchester, but I want you to know at least, just one person who I knew, what happened and to have my Song. It's missing a bit at the end, I hope you can fill them in old friend._

_Yours forever,_

_Jordan Hullavon_

Tears were streaming down Kugelblitz's face by the time they had finished the letter. They placed the letter on the desk before looking at the thick manuscript also sealed in with the letter. 

"I shall need to find a good trust worthy publisher, but first a pen let's see what we have…' they mused. Then silence. "No. First I shall check up on Lee, I must make sure at least one friend I have here is okay." They then got up and left in a hurry to the engineer's quarters.


End file.
